Keyboard stops responding when using gnome-terminal

[Steven Haigh]

Hi all,

I've been having this issue for a few days now and it's really gotten  
to the point where I can't stand it anymore.. My laptop (a Dell  
Inspiron 8600) is having issues where after a while of use with  
various apps (usually gaim, gnome-terminal, and firefox), the  
keyboard just locks up.

Now I'm not sure what's going on when it does this, as everything  
looks normal... the only difference I can tell is that the gnome- 
terminal prompt goes from it's normal box to a hollow box. during  
this time i can't click on menus or do anything useful.

The one thing I CAN do is to use the keyboard to press CTRL + ALT +  
F1 and low and behold, the keyboard works fine again. switch back to  
X, and the keyboard doesn't work. rinse, lather, repeat.

There are no obvious things in Xorg.0.log that could indicate what's  
going on, however if I kill gnome-terminal with the mouse, everything  
comes back to normal. As I do 90% of my work in a terminal, this is  
DAMN annoying...

Anyone have any ideas on how to track this down? I've drawn a mental  
blank.

-- 
Steven Haigh

Email: netwiz at crc.id.au
Web: http://www.crc.id.au
Phone: (03) 9017 0597 - 0412 935 897